Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), the world’s seventh-largest auto manufacturer, faced challenges in increasing production speed and consistency due to the growth of global demand for automobiles. The company was running its plants and suppliers at full capacity, which led to capacity chokepoints. Identifying and managing these constraints became a priority for FCA. The company needed a solution that could help them identify these capacity chokepoints as early as possible and work to resolve them, thereby improving the speed of delivery.

Delphi Automotive PLC, a key supplier to the world’s leading automakers, faced the challenge of incorporating increased delivery speed and product customization into its operations. The company assembles and delivers critical components to automotive OEM assembly lines, in a predefined sequence at short notice. This is particularly challenging due to the complexity of Delphi’s products. For instance, a single electrical harness may be composed of hundreds of miles of wire, connecting to thousands of points within the vehicle. Delphi recognized the need for an automated decision-support tool to help it support these increasingly complex build-to-order requirements.

Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, a global leader in the science of heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring, was struggling to understand and meet demand. The company sells roughly 5,500 SKUs for the hemodynamic monitors and critical care products, and speed of delivery is an essential part of its business. When a customer orders a product, they are expecting to perform a surgery that’s been scheduled. If Edwards does not have the product or cannot deliver it quickly enough, surgeries have to be postponed or delayed. In the case of heart valves, not having the product or not being able to deliver it quickly could pose health risks to the patient who needs the heart valve. Prior to 2009, the company was struggling with forecast accuracy. The commercial team had a forecast that was 'aspirational,' and the supply chain side had one that tended to be statistically based. They initially couldn’t come to an agreement about which forecast to use, and as a result, they manufactured a lot of incorrect product mix.

Bel Group, a global cheese brand, faced logistics challenges as it expanded its operations internationally. The company had to manage the shipment of highly perishable products over long distances, with transportation times ranging from a single day to three months. Safety stocks, promotional events, and other variables had to be carefully managed to ensure both the availability and freshness of Bel Group’s products. The company needed a solution to support a global sales and operations planning (S&OP) process and provide a consolidated view of demand, capacity, and service levels across its worldwide operations.

Beaver Street Fisheries, a leading wholesaler of seafood and meat, was struggling with operational efficiency, accuracy, and customer responsiveness in its warehouse operations. The company's 25-year-old homegrown legacy system was no longer able to keep up with the increasing customer requirements for special processing requests. The company was running an old school, paper-based, pick-ticket warehouse where employees would choose a pick ticket and then spend anywhere between five and 20 minutes looking for the product to fill the order. This lack of visibility affected productivity in the warehouse. The company also had issues with inventory accuracy, with products in the warehouse that couldn't be located, leading to delays in order fulfillment.

Access Business Group, a full-service outsourced manufacturing and supply chain organization, was facing challenges in maintaining high customer service levels while minimizing inventory at its 11 distribution centers across Russia and Europe. The company was working with outdated supply chain technologies that made it difficult to maintain a balance between rapid fulfillment and tight inventory control. The company had an older warehouse management platform and some homegrown systems that were not sustainable for the future. The lack of standardization of processes and transparency across operations was also a major issue.

GEODIS, a global supply chain operator, manages over 38 million square feet of warehousing in 126 facilities across North America. The company offers flexible and scalable warehousing solutions to its customers, including value-added warehousing, e-commerce and e-fulfillment, support for promotions and product launches, and reverse logistics, among others. Labor productivity is a key to success for all of GEODIS’ operations. As a result, when the company set a goal to boost productivity for its upcoming peak season (September-December), it turned to JDA and JDA’s implementation partner 4SIGHT Supply Chain Group to help update the standards in its workforce management system. The key components GEODIS needed for its labor solution included an incentive program, a labor management system (LMS), and engineered labor standards (ELS).

Sephora China, a leading luxury goods group, was experiencing a disconnect between their stores and main supply chain team due to its tremendous growth over the last few years. The company was facing challenges in improving collaboration with their suppliers and creating localized assortments and planograms for store-level execution. The high-end customers are Sephora China’s focus, and the attractive store display and high-quality customer service are their business key focus points. Therefore, it was crucial for Sephora to find a solution that would help them manage their supply chain more effectively and efficiently, while also catering to the specific needs and preferences of their local customers.

Hibbett Sports, a company that operates nearly 1,100 stores in 35 states, was founded in 1945 with one store in Florence, Alabama. For 73 years, Hibbett Sports was solely a brick and mortar retailer. However, the company believes e-commerce is going to be a major contributor to their revenue stream and overall growth going forward. With speed-to-delivery being a key component of reaching this success, the omni-channel retailer recognized the need for having the right technology in place. The majority of the product they sell is either seasonal or fashion oriented. Because of this, it’s critical to have the right merchandise in front of the customer, whether it’s on their website or in stores. Due to the high volumes, it’s essential they have the right technology in place to support the speed to market. To remain competitive in the marketplace, the long-time customer, migrated some of their existing Blue Yonder solutions to the cloud in an effort to grow sales and profits, gain consistent support, increase uptime availability of their systems and the ability to keep up with the latest software upgrades.

SodaStream, the world’s largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of home carbonation systems, was consolidating its existing operations into a new campus in Israel. The company needed to rapidly implement an agile, flexible warehouse management solution to maximize the efficiency of its new warehouse. SodaStream had specific requirements regarding put-away, storage and mixing inventory. Additionally, the company had a large number of unskilled employees who had to be trained in any new technology. The challenge was to find a solution that could meet these specific needs and be implemented quickly and efficiently.

CONAD Centro Nord, a territorial cooperative associated with the National Consortium of Retailers (CONAD) operating in the mass distribution market in Italy, was looking to optimize their re-ordering process. The company aimed to reduce costs due to a lower quality of goods moved and a lower quantity of managed orders to vendors. Prior to implementing JDA's solutions, the company worked with paper printouts showing all the sales data, while order data was primarily the property of the team in charge of replenishment. At the time, CONAD Centro Nord was partially leveraging their existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

CONAD Adriatico, a cooperative leader in Italy, Albania, and Kosovo, was faced with the challenge of balancing stock ownership and store inventory needs. The company needed to minimize order fragmentation and determine the right purchasing frequency for each product, while also considering logistics constraints such as truckload capacity utilization and minimum order quantities. The goal was to achieve this supply chain transformation while delivering the highest level of service to their affiliates and customers.

South African retailer Ackermans, with over 450 stores, was facing challenges in accurately allocating merchandise across its stores. The process was labor-intensive and resulted in missed sales opportunities at the individual store level. The allocation was not based on actual shopper needs, leading to stock being sent to the wrong locations or not being sent at all. Ackermans was already using JDA Enterprise Planning to manage its strategic, merchandising, and location plans, but needed a solution to improve efficiency and productivity in allocation.

Atlanta Bonded Warehouse Corporation (ABW) has been providing public and contract food-grade, temperature-controlled distribution services for over 60 years. The company has grown to 3.8 million square feet of modern, high cube storage and distribution capacity in 12 facilities across the southeast. ABW sought to standardize their warehouse operations and the services they provide in order to be an all-in-one provider to their supply chain customers. However, ABW’s paper-based legacy system made this very challenging. ABW’s goals were to implement a highly configurable warehouse management system (WMS) that would offer more functionality than their legacy system and to move their customers’ products through their supply chains in a much more efficient manner, while retaining the ability to track and trace food lot codes to support food safety requirements.

Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, an international supply chain specialist, was facing increasing demands from its third-party logistics (3PL) customers. These customers wanted more insight into the fulfilment process, while also expecting cost savings and increased service levels. Meeting these high customer demands, while reducing internal costs, brought on additional challenges for Hellmann, such as the need to standardize and optimize warehouse operations and ensure they were billing existing customers for every service received. Hellmann also realized the need to provide visibility to customers throughout every step of the logistics process, from tracking portal access to accurate and real-time data and customized reporting. To provide transparency to their customers and keep up with other increasing expectations while reducing costs simultaneously, Hellmann needed a warehouse management solution (WMS) that could help them organize people, processes and resources in order to standardize warehouse operations.

Dot Foods, the nation’s first and largest food industry redistributor, was facing challenges in managing the growth of its business, which was doubling every five years. The company was struggling with customization, new channels, and keeping up with regulation, all while trying to leverage technology across the enterprise to keep costs low. The company had been using a warehouse management system (WMS) that was nearing end of life, and needed a new WMS platform that would serve as the foundation for all its future supply chain initiatives.

Bradshaw International, a leading manufacturer of kitchen gadgets, faced a significant challenge as its product line, customer base, and yearly revenues grew exponentially. The company, which ships over 200 million products annually to over 45,000 retail outlets in the United States and Canada, needed to manage a dramatically increased order volume and special customer requests. Initially, the company was operating from a 200,000-square-foot facility with about 15 employees. However, with the business expansion, the company now operates from a 1.3 million square feet warehouse with about 300 employees. The company's inventory tracking system, which was initially managed on spreadsheets with paper and pencil, became inadequate as the number of SKUs grew from a few hundred to thousands. The company needed an advanced system to manage its day-to-day operations, track inventory, and quickly locate and move products.

Marvell Semiconductor, a $4 billion company based in California's Silicon Valley, manufactures a diverse range of products including storage devices, controllers, routers, switches, gaming devices, multimedia chips, and printers. The company operates in an industry known for its long cycle times, with it taking approximately 14 weeks to build a product from scratch. This poses a challenge as customers generally do not want to wait that long. In order to meet customer requests, Marvell needed solutions to help manage its inventory and position it at the right point in the supply chain. One of Marvell’s key supply chain objectives is to meet – and exceed – its customers’ expectations. It aims to have the right product in the right place at the right time for delivery to the customer. At the same time, it’s important to drive revenue, so the company has to manage its inventory carefully and have a good supply chain in place – one that can be changed rapidly to meet customer requests. This enables Marvell to bring products to market faster, or in certain cases, be flexible enough to shift to a different product when demand changes.

Walgreens, one of the largest drugstore chains in the United States, interacts with more than 10 million consumers a day across its 8000 stores in all 50 states. The company's aggressive expansion plan has resulted in a Walgreens store being located within five miles of approximately 76 percent of Americans. While this makes it extremely convenient for consumers to access the company’s wide range of products and services, it creates a significant logistic challenge for the retailer’s supply chain planners. Prior to implementing JDA Transportation Management, Walgreens relied on legacy software tools which were not able to keep up with the speed and complexity of the company's logistics operations.

L.L.Bean, an American apparel and outdoor retailer, has been facing challenges as its business expands. The company, which employs around 5,000 people year-round and up to 10,000 during peak sales season, has been struggling to accurately predict market trends and invest in the right products for the upcoming year. Speed of delivery is a crucial aspect of L.L.Bean's business model, as the company prides itself on its customer service. Therefore, ensuring that products reach customers in a timely manner is of utmost importance.

Asian Paints’ decorative division produces more than 1,600 standard paint product stock-keeping units (SKUs) and many made-to-order (MTO) formulations. This dynamic production environment requires a sophisticated and robust supply chain. Asian Paints applies advanced master planning technologies to decide which products should be produced at which manufacturing plants, incorporating variables such as cost and demand volume, capacity, current inventory levels, environmental requirements and other factors. Asian Paint’s goals were to reduce inventory levels and manual processes, while improving service levels, productivity, overall production and safety stock planning.

DSC Logistics, a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, has grown from a single facility in Chicago to over 50 logistics centers with more than 20 million square feet of space and over 3,000 employees. The company faced the challenge of providing customers with accuracy, damage-free and on-time delivery, safety, and low costs. To meet these challenges, DSC Logistics needed to optimize its systems and gain complete visibility to be effective and efficient at every step. The company's goals were to become experts at managing its labor, ensure that they are the low-cost provider when it comes to labor, raise the level of accountability for everyone in the company, and gain the ability to analyze labor cost impact on ROI for prospective technology initiatives.

Martins Comercio e Servicos de Distribuicao S/A (Martins), the largest wholesaler in Brazil, operates a vast and complex distribution system. The company sells 13,000 individual stock-keeping units (SKUs), covers more than 34 million kilometers annually, manages 165,000 square meters of warehousing space, and operates a state-of-the-art fleet of nearly 1,200 delivery vehicles. Despite its size, the company operates on slim margins, making it crucial for Martins to work as effectively and productively as possible. The company needed to optimize every aspect of its operations, from purchasing from vendors to delivering to customers, to maximize its tight profit margins. One of the key areas identified for optimization was inventory management. The company realized that it could save a significant amount of money by minimizing overstocks and optimizing its inventory.

Cummins Global Logistics (CGL), a unit of Cummins, a leading global provider of diesel and natural gas engines and related technologies, was facing challenges in improving the efficiency of its warehouse operations to provide better aftermarket support for its customers. The company's in-house warehouse management system (WMS) was outdated and provided less automation than what was required to support the company’s growth. The company was in need of a sophisticated distribution network that could fulfill orders quickly and accurately to support customers in approximately 190 countries.

Würth International, a global wholesaler specializing in the sale of fastening and assembly materials, was facing challenges with its supply chain. With warehouse locations all over Europe and many separate suppliers, the company had very limited transparency into demand across its day-to-day operations and could not support its growth initiatives. The company was experiencing stock shortages and extended delays as goods passed through its supply chain, known as the “bullwhip” effect. To reduce these issues, the company realized it needed a new solution in order to gain much-needed insight into customer demand and a more efficient, automated replenishment process. Würth International required an approach that would increase demand visibility and allow the company to garner the resulting benefits, including inventory reduction, decreased product obsolescence, improved customer service levels and purchasing, as well as achieve material management efficiencies.

The hospitality industry is facing a new price war due to market transparency and the rapid growth of Internet bookings. This has created significant challenges for hotel operators, including Carlson Hotels, which is constantly looking for ways to differentiate itself and maximize its revenue in this competitive, price-driven environment. Traditional yield management is only sporadically effective when market conditions lead to fewer sold-out nights. Carlson Hotels identified a need for a more sophisticated method of matching rates to actual demand so they could measure their success based not only on occupancy rates, but also on the revenues generated by individual bookings and the value of 'missed opportunities' caused by quoting higher prices during a low-demand cycle.

American Airlines Cargo, a division of American Airlines, manages more than 36 million ton miles of freight and mail weekly on approximately 180 wide-body and more than 3,200 narrow-body flights each day. The company provides cargo lift capacity to more than 240 cities in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. However, calculating available cargo capacity on a passenger flight is not as straightforward as it may seem. Not only are there obvious factors such as passenger and baggage forecasts, the amount of fuel on board and equipment weight to consider, but there are also external factors such as airport limits on takeoff and/or landing weights or ground-handling capabilities for tight airport connections that have to be taken into account. The most important factor that affects capacity forecasting accuracy is customer behavior. Bookings on passenger flights are often cancelled, amended or under/over tendered at the last minute. Therefore, forecasting customer tendering behavior is a critical factor that needs to be modeled, using overbooking algorithms to predict the optimal adjustments to capacity in order to minimize spoilage or offloads.

Doosan Electro-Materials, a Korea-based company specializing in the production of high-quality copper clad laminate (CCL) and flexible copper clad laminate (FCCL), faced significant challenges with its inventory management. The company's large stocks of inventory were inhibiting cash flow, hurting profitability, and creating complex supply chain issues. The fast pace of innovation in the electronics industry, where Doosan operates, leads to rapid component obsolescence, making high inventory levels particularly risky. In 2007, Doosan's management team decided to initiate significant changes to optimize its supply chain processes and implement new demand management and product planning strategies. The company's inventory problems were exacerbated by difficulties with its demand forecasting systems, which could only make a demand plan for the next four weeks.

Goya Foods, Inc., a global food company with over $1 billion in annual sales, was facing challenges with its supply chain processes. Despite its growth and success, the company was still holding on to a small business mindset and associated supply chain processes that were limiting its growth. Many of Goya’s processes remained manual when they could be automated to achieve greater efficiency. In addition, Goya’s supply chain model and associated technology systems were based on a transactional approach that focused on inventory purchases instead of beginning with consumer demand and an integrated forecasting process. The company was seeing 5 to 6 percent out-of-stock levels due to its enormous product diversity and lack of an integrated demand planning process. Executives wanted to see that measure fall to 2 percent.

São Paulo Distribuição e Logistica (SPDL), a strategic venture between two of Brazil's largest newspaper groups, O Estado de São Paulo and Folha de São Paulo, was facing the challenge of continuously optimizing their distribution costs in the face of skyrocketing fuel costs and the proliferation of online news sources. SPDL's transportation network serves more than 900 cities, as well as 700,000 last-mile distribution locations, with 1,250 vehicles traveling more than 100,000 kilometers each day. Despite having a mature operation, SPDL was seeking greater levels of efficiency. They were relying on spreadsheets and manual analysis techniques, and there were no additional savings opportunities that they could identify. They had systematically and thoroughly reviewed every truck route, using the tools they had available.